Who's your daddy?

[sdjames]

Here's an interesting puzzle. I've been growing out a couple of crosses I got from another CPer and I'm beginning to doubt that the parent listed as the father is accurate. (In all fairness, the grower clearly stated that the flowers were not covered after pollination to prevent critters from having their way with the flowers. Here's in Southern California stray pollination is lots less of an issue than it seems to be deep in the South.)

This crop is from seed labeled S. melanorrhoda "Triffid Park" x rosea luteola, a hybrid which should be 1/8 flava, 3/8 purpurea, and 1/2 rosea.

With the three below that are most in focus I'm pretty sure rosea could be the sperm donor. So far so good.


But with the rest is anyone suspicious yet? Like, where'd the leuco areolas come from on some of the plants?


I'm really scratching my head with this next one. The cross is only 1/8 flava with the rest purp or rosea, but this leaf is incredibly upright and not super-bulbous. In the end I think the parentage could be correct. Hmmm.


I'm growing out seed from another cross with the anthocyanin-free rosea, this one with S. areolata (alata x leuco) as the maternal plant. And here too I'm seeing plants that don't look like they're credible kids of the indicated parents.

S. flava seems to have gotten into the mix with the next two:


Of the next two smaller pups, I'm thinking the one on the left probably is a botanical love-child, but the one on the right looks possibly correct.


Opinions?

 

[amphirion]

they could very well be the correct parentage...sarracenia are by far the most variable CP in cultivation, due to the ability to make complex hybrids in such a period of time. even within primary crosses the progeny vary from seedling to seedling. rather than thinking all the progeny will look the same, it is more accurate to view the phenotypes of a primary cross in the shape of the bell curve, where few individual plants will look like either parent plant, while the majority will look like both. with complex hybrids, expect double bell curves, outliers, multiple modes, and every other statistical anomaly in the distribution.

 

[GrowinOld]

IMO you won't know for sure without a DNA test.
Some of the offspring of crosses don't even show any of the visible signs of one or the other of its parents. They look like one of their parents, and not the other.
This variation is what makes hybridizing so interesting & fun. (Otherwise you would look exactly like your brother or sister!)

Personally, if I like what a plant looks & grows like,
that is what matters most.

When I see a killer plant that looks terrific, I want it even if it is an unknown hybrid.
Trying to be accurate & sure of what you have growing may not always be possible.
The best thing to do for others is to tell them what it "might" be, but you will never be able to say for sure, and it wouldn't be right to claim that it is something, when it may not be.

While I have many plants that I am pretty sure of what they are (came from someone who did the controlled cross or got the plant from the original person who cloned it), but beyond that, who can be sure.
We have to trust who we get our plants from, but we also have to use some common sense too. Without actual testing, who can say for sure?

I don't think we should take ourselves too seriously. On the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter all that much.
If the "pure breed" plants we have here are actually the result of some cross made hundreds or thousands of years ago, does it really matter?

Good luck with your I.D. quest!

(These are simply my thoughts on this, and you will likely find people who disagree totally! But then how could we confuse people if we all agreed?! )

 

[sdjames]

Yes, it's all pretty messy--and interesting--genetically alright! I guess it's also possible that the identity of plants we take for granted around us might be a little suspect, and the plants used as parents might have some unknown genes lurking.

One thing I hadn't mentioned: I was hoping to be able to use some of the seedlings for further crosses, hoping to let the recessive anthocyanin-free gene to express itself in future generations. I suppose I could self any prospective parents and see if about a quarter of the seedlings end up green. Then I could be pretty sure of the pollen parent. If a plant looks extra-interesting it might be worth the bother...